Havoc (10 page)

Gotta tell you, having superpowers turns out to be a lot of work.

Spencer leaped up and waved excitedly as I entered the library. I blushed, offered him a hand in return, and rushed through the room to the table where he had a bunch of books laid out. He held a chair out for me, gentleman-like, and I took it.

I had planned to resist, but after the awful, brain-busy day I'd had, I really, really wanted to just calm down. I scooted my chair in close to Spencer, enough so that irresistible musk washed over me. Immediately my brain slowed down, going from a race to a crawl. I closed my eyes and let it soak into me, let it flood out the worries and fears. I knew this feeling was only temporary, and that I needed to stop relying on it to handle my business. But, for just that afternoon, it would help.

“Mmm,” I moaned.

“Uh, you falling asleep?” Spencer asked.

I shot straight up, my eyes snapped open. “Sorry,” I said. “It's just I've been running around all day, and it's nice to sit in a quiet place.”

He grinned at me. “I'm glad you enjoy my company.”

If he only knew.

“Hey.”

Dalton appeared then, and I felt myself stiffen. He sat down in the chair next to me, offered me a smile, and nodded at Spencer. And it was then that I remembered how he'd acted the night before. I'd been so consumed with worries about yet more bodily changes, about those damn shadowmen, that I'd let it slide.

But he'd asked me what it was like to kill a man. He'd kept going on in graphic detail about what he would have done. As though he'd have woken up the next morning, seen the dead body, and
enjoyed
it.

I looked at his face. It was chiseled but still had a hint of boyishness. There was a light brush of freckles on his cheeks, a lighthearted glint to his eyes. He was the same Dalton I'd always seen around school. The friendly jock everyone loved. It had to have just been his nighttime personality. I mean, I hadn't exactly been remorseful when I was Nighttime, either.

“You guys ready for a bunch of reading?” Spencer asked.

“Yeah, reading,” Dalton said, thumbing at the cover of one of the books in front of us. “Can't wait.”

I leaned down and dug through my backpack, producing the books I'd already found. While I did so, Spencer leaned back in his chair to address Dalton.

“So, man, you find her yet?”

Dalton shook his head. “Nah, but I've been sniffing, I promise. I think I can sort of smell her, but she's not like Emily. Not as strong.”

“And she's wearing some annoyingly common perfume or something,” Spencer said. “I keep smelling
that
, but never her. Whoever she is, she must bathe in the stuff.”

I looked between the two of them. “You guys have been looking for the other one of us?”

“Of course,” Spencer said. “I was going to talk to you about it, but you seemed zoned out today.”

I leaned closer to him, let his aroma waft into my nostrils. I smiled. “Sorry. I'm better now.”

“You recover from the big night?” Dalton asked me. Spencer reacted first. “Huh? Big night?”

“Uh, he means the whole weird confrontation with his dad,” I answered quickly.

Dalton started to speak again, but I kicked him under the table. He clamped his lips shut.

“Oh,” Spencer said, looking between the two of us. “Yeah, he was kind of harsh.”

A pen tapped against the table, and all three of us looked up to find the librarian glaring at us. She was skinny and frail, her wire-frame glasses askew on her nose and her hair a white pouf. But her stare was all business.

“If you want to socialize,” she said, her voice firm, “then I suggest the mall—” She stopped speaking, recognizing Dalton. “Oh! Dalton! Sorry, dear, I didn't see it was you. It's been so lonely around here without you to help me shelve.”

Dalton grinned up at her. “I missed you too, Ms. Levine. Maybe tomorrow I can come help out. That way you can get an early start on the weekend.”

A blush came to Ms. Levine's cheeks, and she put her hand to her throat. “That would be lovely, Dalton, just—” Catching me giving her a strange look, the librarian cleared her throat. “Anyway, I know you are excited to be back at school, but please try to keep it down.”

Dalton nodded at her, still grinning. “Of course, Ms. Levine.”

The librarian left, and Spencer snorted, trying to hold in his laughter. “Dude, half the teachers here totally want to do you.”

Dalton slouched over the table. “Shut up, man, no they don't.”

I smiled. “Okay, how about we get to work? Maybe? Unless you guys want to keep talking about which teachers you'd do.”

Neither did. We each grabbed a book.

There's a surprising amount of information on shadowmen—or, at least, the folklore of them. They're called lots of things—shadow folk, shadow beings, shadow ghosts. The paranormal-focused books say that maybe they're ghosts or demons, summoned to haunt you out of the corner of your eye, making you see someone in the periphery, freak out—and turn to find no one there.

One of these books had an artist's interpretation of a shadow being. It was an ink drawing, all intricate hashes and solid lines, indicating a figure standing in the corner of a bedroom. Doing nothing threatening. Just standing there. Waiting.

I turned from that page fast.

Then there were the scientific explanations, which I figured I should pay the most attention to. My own transformation turned out to be a science thing, not a paranormal thing. And ghosts are pretty much the definition of paranormal.

But the scientific explanations proved to be wholly inadequate. They went on about brain conditions causing you to perceive shadows in your peripheral vision as familiar shapes; about people who have sleep paralysis and are still dreaming even while partially awake, so that their subconscious summons up creepy images around them.

That last one sounded particularly terrifying, but it was easily explained as “not real.” And my shadowmen were very real. I saw them out of the corner of my eye, and then they would full-on lunge at me. I mean, maybe I could reason that this was all just part of my brain playing tricks, if it wasn't for the fact that Spencer had seen them as well. Not to mention I'd touched one.

So, much like the werewolf books, these proved absolutely useless. I was back to knowing nothing. Again.

I shut the book I'd been reading and shoved it away. Beside me, Spencer had four books open, but he wasn't looking at any of them. Instead he leaned on his elbows and stared into space. Dalton read his own book, brow furrowed in concentration.

“So we sure they're not ghosts?” he asked.

“I have no idea,” I muttered.

“One of my books talks about alien abduction,” Spencer whispered, snapping to attention. “So that could still be it.”

“I guess,” I said.

He leaned close to me, concerned. “You don't seem thrilled.”

“I'm not.” Slouching in my chair, I crossed my arms. “On TV, it's always easy to find some book in, like, the dungeon area of a library that has all the detailed answers. Just find yourself a middle-aged British man with a head for ancient lore and, bam, problem solved. But all of these are just collections of myths. That doesn't help at all.”

“Does our library?” Dalton asked.

“Huh?”

“Does it have a dungeon?”

I suppressed a laugh. “I'm pretty sure those type of libraries only exist in, like, small New England towns or something. Unless Ms. Levine has some sort of secret lair.”

“Oh.” He nodded knowingly. “Gotcha.” He glanced up at Ms. Levine, back at her desk. She offered a smile and a wave, and he quickly turned away.

A shadow hovered over the table. I snorted in a breath and shoved myself back from the table, ready to toss back my chair and run for it, Ms. Levine be damned. If the shadowmen were here—

But darting my head to look up, I saw that this shadow was thankfully the normal type. Megan stood there with tall, brooding Patrick beside her. He of the black hair and the English accent and the mysterious stare. I remembered the awkward conversation we'd had in a convenience store when I thought he might be the werewolf that turned out to be Spencer. And watching him half-undressed through his bedroom window when I thought he was the killer instead. Turned out he was neither.

Heat rushed to my cheeks. I hoped he wouldn't remember me.

“Hey Emily,” Megan said casually. “And friends.”

Spencer grinned at her. “Hey!”

“Hi,” I said, slamming my books shut. “What are you up to?”

She shrugged. “Patrick and I are doing some research for some homework assignment Mr. Philbrick gave us.”

“Yeah,” Patrick said.

I nodded slowly. “Oh. Neat.”

It was at once way too casual and much too awkward. My two worlds, colliding. I wanted to recede into my hoodie until I disappeared.

Megan crossed her arms and gestured at the books with her chin. “So what are you three doing? Secret projects?”

“Just research,” Dalton said. “Though I think we were supposed to talk about the party tomorrow, too. You're Megan, right?” He held out a hand.

Megan looked Dalton up and down, then held out her own hand, limp. Dalton shook it anyway.

“A party, huh?” Megan said. “How fun.”

“Do you want to come?” Spencer asked.

I sat up straight. What were these two doing? Did they not understand stealth? We were supposed to be scoping out Dalton's dad's office; we weren't
really
going to be partying.

“No,” I said. “Megan hates parties. Too much of a crowd for—”

“I'd love to come.” Megan strung her arm through Patrick's. He looked down at her, his expression bored. “And Patrick, too. Actually, you know what, I'll do you one better: I'll get you a band.”

Dalton perked up at that. “A band? Cool. Anyone I know?”

“Not yet!” Alarmingly perky, Megan jumped forward, snatched a piece of paper from one of our notebooks, produced a pen, and scribbled down a name and number. She slid it across the table to Dalton. “Give these guys a call. I'll let them know to expect it.”

“Awesome.” Dalton held the note up to his nose. “ ‘Bubonic Teutonics.' Cool name. What's a ‘Teutonic'?”

“Okay, well, we have to go do science class stuff,” Megan said, ignoring the question and dragging Patrick away. “See you at the party.”

“Hey, Megan,” I said. “I'll call you later.”

She didn't, but I could tell she wanted to roll her eyes. “I'll be waiting by the phone on pins and needles. Really sharp ones.”

“She seems nice,” Dalton said as Megan and Patrick disappeared into the stacks.

“Yeah,” I said softly. “She's the best.”

Dalton left shortly after the run-in with Megan. Being the guy he is, he apparently had other responsibilities after school. Plus, I was pretty sure if he stayed too long with me and Spencer, Nikki would get on his case.

Spencer and I spent another hour or so looking through books—well, I did anyway; he mostly kept wandering off. I was about ready to give up on finding anything useful, when I looked up to find that someone else had entered the library: Mai Sato.

She sat at a table a little bit away from me, her jet-black hair in a loose, messy ponytail. She hunched over her books, holding her head up with one hand against her cheek, barely seeming to pay attention to what she was reading.

“Spencer,” I hissed, turning to find him.

But he was gone. Again. Off in the stacks somewhere.

I turned back to Mai to see her closing up her books and putting them in her bag. She was about to leave. And it hit me then—I couldn't let her. For whatever reason, I couldn't smell the female werewolf, not like Spencer and Dalton could. But maybe being near her would give me that same gooey familial feeling I got with the boys.

The afternoon of shadowman research had turned out to be useless. But maybe if I could find another member of my pack, it would make all the time spent in the library worth it.

9

OKAY, YOU'RE NOT STALKING ME, ARE YOU?

Hands in my pockets, I sauntered over to Mai's table as casually as I could. I did my best to look at anything
but
her, and then slid into a chair opposite her, pretending I spotted an interesting tome someone had happened to leave there. I flipped it open to see a cross section of a uterus, and my eyes went wide.

Mai side-eyed me as she continued to put her books in her bags. She was almost packed up, and then I was sure she'd leave. I darted my eyes over to my table to see if Spencer was back yet so I could get him over to smell the girl and confirm whether she was, in fact, who we were looking for.

Nope. He was still off on his blissful ADD trek somewhere.

Leaning forward onto the table, I breathed in slowly. That same heavy, flowery perfume I'd smelled the morning when Dalton first came back to school invaded my nostrils. But there was nothing else. No wolf scent that I'd come to associate with the two boys.

“Can I help you?” Mai asked, staring at me like I'd just shown up with my hair dyed the same color as hers and wearing her clothes.

Blinking, I looked up at her. “Oh. Hi, Mai. We have homeroom together.”

I have no idea why that was the first thing that popped into my head to say. Internally I was smacking my forehead.

Not taking her eyes off me, she bent down slowly to pick up her bag, then set it on the table to zip fully closed.

“Yeah, I know,” she said. “Did you need something?”

“Oh,” I said. “Uh, I just smelled that perfume. It's pretty. You don't really seem like the perfume type, though. But it's nice.”

Closing her eyes, she stopped moving for a moment, her hands hovering over the zipper to her bag. “Emily gave it to me,” she said quietly. “She used to wear it. It reminds me of her.” Clearing her throat, she added, “Plus, if I don't have time for a shower after PE, I can just douse myself in it.”